Diversification is key to running a successful business; if you're only producing
one type of product, should demand dry up or competition intensify your earnings
will suffer. Having another product segment helps to supplant earnings if market
conditions change.

Case in point is motherboard manufacturing; if it hasn't already become blatantly
obvious to you, motherboards are becoming increasingly similar. It used to be
that motherboard manufacturers could differentiate themselves by including value
added features, but as chipset manufacturers continue to integrate more and
more into their solutions, the job of the motherboard manufacturer becomes more
difficult. Take the nForce2 for example, outside of IDE RAID there's very little
that motherboard manufacturers can use as basis to differentiate themselves
from one another. The motherboard market is full of competitors that are quickly
losing their unique identities.

Over the past few years we've seen motherboard manufacturers branch out into
different areas to help offset an extremely competitive market. Outside of the
top five volume manufacturers, the rest are pretty much forced to either diversify
their product lines or consolidate heavily to remain afloat. Even the big names
in the industry have taken the diversification route; ASUS is entrenched in
the mobile market with their notebooks and PDAs, Gigabyte and MSI are spreading
their wings with offerings in the enterprise sector and we can't forget about
ECS' very popular Desknotes.

Although not the biggest fish in the sea, Shuttle has made a name for themselves
by expanding into a very lucrative market - the Small Form Factor (SFF) PC business.
The problem with the conventional desktop PC is that no one wants a large, ugly
and noisy tower sitting in their living room; herein lies the key to commoditizing
the PC, making it look less like a PC. Apple has capitalized on this idea with
contributions like their iMac but high prices and a lack of x86 compatibility
have held them back tremendously.

Not too long ago, Shuttle
introduced their first XPC, the SV24, a SFF PC based on the Socket-370 platform.
The idea was neat and we even found a
niche application for it, but we dreamt nightly (not really, we're not that
bad) of a faster version; a SFF PC with an AGP slot and support for either an
Athlon XP or Pentium 4. Shuttle answered our prayers and today they've introduced
the world's first SFF PC that can be used by just about anyone.

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1 Comments

My advice a a Shuttle Customer... DO NOT RISK IT ! There are lots of other vendors with integrity out there. The jokers I've delt with at Shuttle in the US void any warranty they claim ! Im my experience with them I can count on an unneeded flashing bios.. If thats the problem.. than your ok.. ortherwize.. you're on your own.. after a couple of attempts..forget it.. your warrantys expired !! - A Joke they play on us !Reply